One of the most beautiful temple-monastery in Angkor, simply because when it was uncovered, it was almost completely swallowed by the jungle. Its layout's splendor and complexity increased ten folds by its partly collapsed state.

"The plant takes hold of in a crevice somewhere in the superstructure of a building, usually where the bird had deposited the seed, and extends roots downwards to the soil." Quoted from Ancient Angkor.

As centuries passed, the roots gradually become so thick they wedge open the blocks. Eventually, these trees becomes part of the ruin, they support at the same time hold the power to destroy this magnificence infrastructure.

And this is where Angelina Jolie (aka Lara Croft) picked a Jasmine flower before falling through the soil into Pinewood Studio.

Tomb Raider Tree

I decided instead destroying the nature by killing a Jasmine flower, I'll blend in with nature; be ONE with Ta Prohm.

Tree Hugger. We are ONE.

The monastery ruin is fulled of trees grown so magnificently throughout the centuries, you'd be awed by their sheer sizes.

Or even by the size of ONE of their roots,

Or the body of the tree,

Raiding a tomb ruin is not easy, it takes more than one person's effort. Unlike Lara Croft, we are just mere mortals you see.

OK fine! You caught me red handed, guilty as charged! I wasn't ALONE! I was with someone at the ruin!

Guys, meet my partner in crime.

Nicole.

Miraculously an awesome blogger and a wonderful travel partner, Nicole and I clicked easily like bread and butter; chocolate to ice creams.

I also have to declare, Ta Prohm is a GREAT place to play hide and seek at, I kid you not.

It took forever for Nicole to find me.

What?! You don't believe me?!

You said there's one more person?!!

No really?! There was only us!!!! Just the two of us!!!

.....

Oh shut it!!

Fine, I admit defeat, there was ONE MORE person.

Meet our friend, a low profile traveller whose name does not wished to be mentioned in this blog.

Seriously, you have to be shameless enough to take this picture. Avoiding stares from tourists around the place queuing to take photo with the tree.

"OMGOMGOMG, I'm totally like... agree with you! We so like... HAVE~~~ to take photos together yea"

"Oh yes, what a splendid idea. *clap hands tipping with joy* It must be fate that brought us together in such a magical mysterious place. It's destined that we declare each other as sisters."

"Yo sis!! Sisterhood forever gurl!"

"Yes, indeed, we shall lend a hand whenever one of us is in need."

"......"

There you go. My two lovely friends from Cambodia.

And we continue to run around Ta Prohm, playing spy and and detective on rocks and crevices.

Hidden tigress

Around the temple, you find lots of code marked stones lying in sequence on the ground.

These are stones that belonged to the ruin, but collapsed replaced by the trees.

I call them, homeless stones.

Okay FINALLY, there IS ONE MORE scene from the Tomb Raider movie that I bet most (like 99%) of the tourists to Angkor have not been able to locate.

How do I know? Because I tracked the place down and NOT a SINGLE SOUL was there!

Remember the scene where the bad guys broke into the "Tomb" by puling down a polystyrene gate?

Iain Glen acting as the evil Manfred Powell

Is it NOT at Bayon, despite popular belief.

Bayon

It IS at Angkor Thom where Bayon is in.

Though it is NOT the south gate of Angkor Thom.

Where? Not the east entrance of Angkor Thom, but the exact East Gate of Angkor Thom.

It was when I finished Ta Prohm that I realised I have not spotted this particular gate, because it was not exposed to the public.

Hence I cycled 3km back to Angkor Thom to find the infamous mysterious East Gate.

Tracing through the map, I landed myself in some dirt track road that took me into the depths of the jungle. God knows where I was heading to.

And the creepy part? There wasn't anyone in sight.

The unbearable part? Cycling on dirt track road with a town bike is a PAIN in the ASS!!!!!!!!

Ouch ouch ouch.

15 mins later. I finally found him!!!!

The Face

Woohoo!!! I just cam-whored single handedly with the East Gate. OMGOMGOMG I stood on the exact ground where Iain Glen once laid. o.O *faint*

A long way in, but it was all worth it!!

Lonesome town bike.

I know the photo is slanted, I couldn't find a flat 0-gradient rock to fix it on. But don't you think it's more artistic this way? :D

Mission accomplished.

As the evening drew closer, I cycled out of the Northern Gate and 18KM straight towards the east end of Angkor big circuit to catch sunset at Pre Rup temple, said to offer one of the best sunset sight.

18KM on a cycle!!!! This was like chasing the sun before it falls down!! Seriously, I was cursing most of the way!!!

And the asuras (demons), and they cooperated with each other to churn the Sea of Milk to create the elixir of immortality – amrita.

Asuras

But the teamwork ended when Amrita was formed and the gods went back on their words to give half a bottle to the Asuras, and hence the Asuras tried to steal it.

So is the great Hinduism myth, so you find at every gate of Angkor Thom (this is the Wat where Tomb Raider filmed one of their scenes), the cravings of the gods and the Asuras demons.

Why does the demon always look scarier?

These were the imprints and cravings at Angkor Wat, as I raised early the next morning and cycled all the way back to the Angkors (I missed the 5:30am sunrise shut up), there was barely anyone.

Angkor Wat

The front yard of Angkor Wat

Except for the few monks

It was the best time to tour the Wat.

Inner back garden

It was so empty, you could even sleep there.

Looking at the sleeping travellers.

What better time to test your self timing skill than now eh? :D :D :D

Chilling out in the temple

Resting and looking around

Omg I love my hair color in this picture, several wash later it actually became blondish brown T_T

Red Head

Shadow on Angkor - peter pan??

How big do you think this stone stair is?

Pretty big~

Peek-A-Boo

Spider man on rocks!

Second take,

Spider woman on rocks closer view!

Phew, have to jump through gaps back and forth.

Okay next, how big do you think this stone stair is? Looking up!

Can’t imagine right?

Put a Nicole there.

I’d say pretty bloody BIG!(This shot I have to run so very far away~ )

Walking on the stone street leading up to Angkor Wat, you’ll find many holes on the stones that were made to carry these heavy weights around.

Going through the temple, you’ll find yourself on the other side of AW which was meant to be the East entrance to the Wat. Here you can almost visualized how it used to be back in the days when Angkor was built.

The original road to Angkor

And how it was like few hundreds years later the whole Angkors were engulfed by the jungle.

Bayon

Further up north you will reach Angkor Thom – one of the largest of all Khmer cities (appropriately means “Great City”), or the four main gates surrounding it. This is the south gate, where most people enter and exit through.

No this is not the gate where the Tomb Raider evil guy pulled down.

One of the most prominent temples inside Angkor Thom is Bayon,

pretty much “the most enigmatic and powerful religious constructions in the world” according to this book,

This is a good book, not only it describe the details of each temple, it tells what is the best time to visit each temple (best lighting)

Which I bought from this girl who approached me during my lunch break.

I tell you, she was damn persuasive ok?!

More camwhore sessions,

First take, too close

Have to place on the top of the stairs and then run down in big steps and pose,

Second take, ah.. better!

Around the temple you will find a lot of face towers constructed to form an ascending peak.

More self timing

This is a difficult angel, an uncle from china helped me take this :D

They say there used to be 49 towers around the temple, but now there’re only 37 left.

Bayon, in my opinion, is one of the most visited temple among the tourists, why? Because when you see a bunch of locals in fancy themed costume are out to hunt for gullible tourists for over expensive Polaroid photographs, you know the place it’s over commercialised.

Seriously, the way she bent reminded me of these figurine carvings on every possible structure in Angkor.

yea bent it baby~

Even the monks love to take photograhs :D

Very cute Cambodian kid

Victory gate, Angkor Thom

On the way to the east entrance of Angkor Thom, I dumped my bicycle in the bush and decided to venture into the field.

Self timer on a rock

When it took you at least 10 mins to set up your camera, you take more than one photo.

I need to run pretty far for this shot,

first take, ran out of time, so turned around and pose first.

Second take, ran faster, leaped down the giant stone steps, across the field and up the stone steps again and POSE!

Exiting the East entrance (notice I didn’t say East gate, cause the east gate is hidden from tourists), on the way to Ta Keo and Ta Phrom temples, you will come by this little sweet elegant temple called Thommanon.

Post card worthy~

Obviously taken by another random tourist

This toothless grandma can climb better steps than me!

Don’t pray pray

Self timer pose at Thommanon!

How to take self timer pose at Thommanon!

Oh no, now my secrets are out!

Ta Keo

Now the Ta Keo is impossible to be missed. A giant temple-mountain made entirely, get this, sandstone.

It’s massive, tall and extremely towering, and it’s incomplete.

Also a playground for local kids

Shot of my feet

I'm getting used to standing at the edge

Resting after an intense climb.

The wind up here was magnificient!

Pose of myself chilling out at Ta Keo

Love the view~!

Phew, what a long post, total of 59 photos! I think. Didn’t really count. Lol(I bet there are lame people who will count the photos after I mention it)

After so much climbings, so many running back and forth taking many shots of difficult self timing photos, I can feel water evaporating out of my skin.